—a Queen
So beautiful that with one single beam
Of her great beauty, all the country round
Is rendered shining.
Some accounts state that the bride of Oberon was known as Esclairmond, a name which seemingly is one with eclair monde or “Light of the World”.
Figs. 423 and 424.—British. From Akerman.
We have seen that the surroundings of the Dane John at Canterbury are still known as Rodau’s Town: the coins of the Rhodian Greeks were sometimes rotae or wheel crosses in the form of a rose, and there is little doubt that our British rota coins were intended to represent various conceptions of the Rose Garden, or Avalon, or the Apple Orchard: using another simile the British poets preached the same Ideal under the guise of the Round Table.[790] Fig. 179, (ante, [p. 339]) represented a rose combined with four sprigs or sprouts, and in Fig. 423 (British) the intention of the rhoda is clearly indicated: on the carved column illustrated on [page 708] the rood is a rhoda, and my suggestion in an earlier chapter that “Radipole road,” near London, may have marked the site of a rood pole is somewhat strengthened by the fact that Maypoles occasionally displayed St. George’s red rood or the banner of England, and a white pennon or streamer emblazoned with a red cross terminating like the blade of a sword. Occasionally the poles were painted yellow and black in spiral lines, the original intention no doubt being representative of Night and Day.
Alas poore Maypoles what should be the cause
That you were almost banished from the earth?